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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27983268">Escape Plans</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeltinSkelton/pseuds/MeltinSkelton'>MeltinSkelton</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Pre-Canon Works [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Background Het, Bruises, Codependency, Drinking &amp; Talking, F/M, Falling In Love, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Incest, Internal Conflict, Light Angst, M/M, Minor Original Character(s), One-Sided Attraction, POV Dean Winchester, Parental Dean Winchester, Pining, Pining Dean Winchester, Possibly Unrequited Love, Pre-Slash, Pre-Stanford Era (Supernatural), Scents &amp; Smells, Stanford Era (Supernatural), Underage Drinking, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 17:14:36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,746</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27983268</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeltinSkelton/pseuds/MeltinSkelton</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>On a hot night in Georgia, Dean and Sam celebrate another (mostly) successful hunt, and get to talking about the future.</p><p>Dean doesn't like it when Sam talks about the future, lately.</p><p>(POV confused-and-pining!Dean Winchester, six months prior to Sam leaving for Stanford.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dean Winchester &amp; Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester/Other(s), Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Pre-Canon Works [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2084448</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>35</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Escape Plans</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Unbeta'd as always; enjoy accordingly.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>People ask you if you’re lonely, sometimes. </p><p>Girls, usually. Girls care about that sort of crap. It’s always the same thing: you meet one at a bar or a diner or during an interview or something, and you tell her your traveler’s stories, you make up lies about your job and your family and your past. You get your hooks in her. Make her feel for you. She’ll pout and flutter her eyelashes and ask you if you get lonely out there, on the road, with nobody to take care of you or keep you company. You’ll tell her shit like: </p><p>“Yeah, of course - but that’s just how it is. You learn to live with it.” </p><p>Or,</p><p>“Nah, I meet new people all the time.”</p><p>Or, if she’s <em> really </em> eating it up,</p><p>“No, I'm not lonely. Not tonight.”</p><p>And you smile with your mouth but not your eyes, and you chuckle and sigh and change the subject, and there’s never a dry pair of panties in the house. It works <em> every </em> fuckin’ time. A bleeding heart is a powerful aphrodisiac.</p><p>Thing is, it’s all a lie. You talk shit pretty convincingly, but <em> you </em> know you’re never lonely, because you’re never <em> alone</em>.</p><p>You’re always twenty feet away - sometimes less - from at least one other person. Usually two other people. It’s always you and Dad and Sam in the sparse, good-enough-for-now spots you dig out for yourselves. You've spent your whole life squeezing in wherever you’ll fit, the three of you like field mice hiding out from the cold. Hotels, motels, hostels, cabins, abandoned houses, the car - there’s rarely privacy, there’s rarely space, there’s rarely a second that goes by that you don’t share with your brother and your dad. </p><p>That’s how it’s <em> always </em> been. You’re <em>used to</em> that. You <em> like </em> it. You’re never lonely, not <em> really</em>, in the same way that even though you don’t have a home, you’ve never <em> really </em> been homeless. Anywhere you are - anywhere at all - you’re always at home, and you’re never alone. You've always got something, someone.</p><p>Tonight, you’re parked on top of a hill just outside of Millen, Georgia. Sam’s in the passenger’s seat beside you. It’s not often that it’s just the two of you together anymore. But this last case was a real sonuvabitch, and Dad had ended up with a bullet in his shoulder. He’s fine, albeit laid up nice and cozy with a belly full of Beam and Percocet in the squat you’ve been using for the last two weeks.</p><p>So it’s just you and Sam and a case of Coors tonight. You sprung for the little brown glass bottles instead of the cans. You’re celebrating, after all. Another successful hunt, and all three of you alive and well - more or less. By Winchester standards, anyhow. On top of Dad's unfortunate injury, there’s a shiner underneath your right eye and a split on one side of Sam’s forehead.</p><p>The busted lip Sam’s sporting, that's actually older - courtesy of a cheap shot you gave him during an impromptu sparring match two days ago. </p><p>He’d bitched and moaned about <em> that </em> more than anything that had happened tonight. Not the pain, obviously - Sam’s a lot of things, but he’s not a pussy - but he’d complained about the hit itself. Called you a fucking asshole and a cheater and refused to admit that he’d just slipped up and lost the bout.</p><p>You wanted to remind him that nothing the two of you go up against fights fair, either. A cheap shot can still be a winning shot. A <em> killing </em> shot.</p><p>But Sam knows that already. He’s known that for a long while. He was just mad. He's newly nineteen, still a kid in a lot of ways, and he just gets mad easy. You get it. After all, you were nineteen not that long ago, too.</p><p>Argument or no, Sam still had your back during the hunt. Always does, no questions. Hell, even when the fucker you’d been grappling had taken a potshot at <em> you</em>, Sam had had the good graces not to rub it in until afterward. He’d waited until you’d parked the car and cracked open the first two beers.</p><p>“Cheers,” he’d said, and reached out to tap a fingertip against the purple bloom on your cheekbone. “To cheap shots.”</p><p>That part of your bruise still feels extra-tender.</p><p>By now, Sam’s got three empties on the floor by his feet. He smiles up at the stars while he talks to you about everything, about nothing. You listen to him with easy attention, letting his gentle rambling soothe away the day. You like it when Sam talks to you. He doesn’t talk to Dad like this - only you. It makes you feel special, like you’ve earned something.</p><p>“You remember that place over on Harvey Street?”</p><p>“The candy shop?” You nod. It was owned by one of the families you'd had to interview. “Yeah, I remember. I liked that place.”</p><p>“You liked the free samples they gave us,” Sam chides you, the smile still on his face.</p><p>“And <em> you </em> liked the counter girl,” you return, with a grin of your own. “She liked you, too.”</p><p><em> Counter Girl’s </em> name is Tiffany - an apple-cheeked all-American gal with big chestnut curls and big blue eyes. She’d spent a lot of the interview quietly wrapping up chocolates and peering over the display cases while her parents talked to the “cops.” Her big blue eyes hardly left Sam’s face.</p><p>She had looked at Sam like she knew he was lonely.</p><p>Sometimes <em> you </em> want to ask Sam if he’s lonely. You don’t ask, though. You won’t admit to yourself that you’re afraid of the answer.</p><p>“I, uh, I went back later,” Sam continues, and he’s not arguing with you about the Tiffany thing. Sam’s not blind or oblivious. Shy, sure, and too noble for his own fucking good a lot of the time - but he’s not <em> stupid</em>.</p><p>"You did? When?"</p><p>“While you and Dad were at the Kersbergen and Filbert places doing sweeps.”</p><p>“Oh, yeah? You get yourself a little sweet treat while you were there? Huh?” You nudge your brother once, twice, ‘til he pushes back and starts to laugh </p><p>It’s that real, genuine laugh of his, the one that rips right through you every time. His voice has gotten so deep over the last few years but when he laughs, when he <em> really </em> laughs, there’s a scratchy sort of high-note to it. It makes you think of the knock-kneed little kid who’s always needed you, trusted you, loved you, in a way that not even Dad could get out of him.</p><p>“Oh, fuck off.” Sam shakes his head. Even in the dark, you can see his cheeks are all pinked up. You can see those heartbreaking dimples deepen. “I just wanted to get a coffee. There’s nowhere else that has decent coffee in this dumb town.”</p><p>“Sure, of course,” you reply. “Coffee. Absolutely. And how <em> was </em> your ‘coffee,’ Sammy?”</p><p>He laughs again and swats your air-quotes away.</p><p>“I didn’t even talk to her, you fuckin’ freak. She was working. And - besides,” he tacks on, scratching at one downy-stubbled cheek. “Her Dad kept giving me the hairy eyeball, y’know?”</p><p>You roll your eyes. “So what, Sam? You know how much <em> easier </em> it is to get laid when a girl’s dad hates you? She might as well put up a neon sign showing you where to slip it in.”</p><p>“<em>God</em>, you’re the <em>worst</em>.” Sam wrinkles his nose and slurps down the last mouthful of his beer noisily. When he sets it down it's so delicate, the way he just barely lets it clink against the other bottles. “I just don’t get the same hard-on you do for pissing off people’s parents.”</p><p>“Try it sometime,” you tell him. “Can’t recommend it enough.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Sam scoffs. “Sure, Dean.”</p><p>He takes the fresh beer you offer with another grateful smile. His eyes look sleepy and you feel like the two of you ought to get back home, soon. You’ve been nursing your third beer for about half an hour, so you’re not worried about being able to drive back. </p><p>You just don’t really <em> want </em> to go home. Not yet.</p><p>Beside you, lazy and content, Sam crosses his arms and picks up where he left off. </p><p>“Her dad was doing this thing, um. I think he was cutting caramel. It <em> smelled </em> like caramel.” Sam blinks a little. “Right? Caramel, in big sheets. Anyway. The thing he was using was like this big blade with handles, um, it looked like, like - what’re those things the Klingons use?”</p><p>“A bat’leth?” </p><p>“<em>That’s </em> what it’s called!” Sam snaps his fingers and points at you, triumphant. “I couldn’t remember and it was <em> killing </em> me. Yeah. It looks like a smaller version of one of those.”</p><p>“Awesome,” you say, unable to stifle a grin at his buzzy enthusiasm. “We could probably kill the shit outta some monsters with a thing like that.”</p><p>“Oh, totally,” Sam agrees. “Just - <em> snnnick</em>!” He makes a chopping motion across his neck. “Done.”</p><p>“Let’s go steal one before we leave,” you suggest.</p><p>“Totally,” Sam repeats, and the two of you fall comfortably silent.</p><p>Through the windshield, the night sky is as clear as glass and as black as pitch, and all the broad swaths of stars overhead knit together across it like drapes of some sequined velvet. The town’s so small that traffic is almost nonexistent at this hour. It’s so quiet that you can Sam breathing, hear the way his throat clicks when he swallows another mouthful of Coors. A cross-breeze blows through one open window and out the other. It carries a green smell on it. It’s just enough to ruffle Sam’s hair, just enough to soothe out that persistent note of heat that sticks around well after nightfall in this part of the country. The two of you are sweating, but it doesn’t matter.</p><p>The wind blows again and it carries Sam’s sweat-smell over to you. It makes your stomach twist and dip in a way that feels like panic. You tell yourself that <em> that </em> doesn’t matter, either.</p><p>“We’ll be in town for another day or two, with Dad how he is.” The condensation on your bottle is making the label curl and peel. You pick at a corner. “If you wanted to go back again.”</p><p>“To steal a candy-bat’leth?”</p><p>“To do whatever,” you say lightly. “Might as well enjoy yourself while we’re here.”</p><p>“Why don’t <em> you </em> just go hit on her, if you’re so sold on the idea?” There’s no malice in Sam’s voice, just teasing.</p><p>“Maybe I will,” you challenge - but that’s an empty taunt, too. “I do love a workin’ girl. <em> And </em> a daddy’s girl, to boot. <em> Mmh</em>. You think he’ll let me take her in for a little <em> private questioning</em>?”</p><p>“<em>Ugh</em>. Creep.” </p><p>“Prude.”</p><p>“Jerk.”</p><p>“Bitch.”</p><p>Sam shakes his head and stretches, pressing back against the seat. He has to put one arm out of the window to stretch out properly. His sneakers brush the empties at his feet. The bell-like sound of the bottles colliding fills the silence. Sam stills, waits to make sure he didn’t knock any of them over, before he finishes pushing his long, long legs forward with a groan.</p><p>He’s gotten so fucking <em> big</em>. You’re not totally sure when it happened - but that’s how it always is with these things, isn’t it? You looked away, you didn’t pay attention to the gangly kid beside you for a few precious moments and when you looked back there was a full-grown <em> man </em> standing there in his place. It’s sort of hilarious, sometimes, because he’s still got that kid-face on him. A little boy’s face and eyes and smile on top of a narrow-waisted, broad-shouldered, <em> insulting </em> six-foot-four-inches of height. You find yourself looking up his fucking nose when you stand too close.</p><p>All you want to do is stand too close, lately. </p><p>Even now, even within the already-snug confines of the Impala’s front seat, you’re closer than you probably need to be: one arm slung around the back of the passenger’s headrest, your fingertips brushing the shoulder-seam of Sam's shirt when he shifts. Your legs are splayed across the driver’s seat wide enough that you could knock your right knee against Sam’s if the case of beer wasn't in the way.</p><p>It’s pretty normal. You’re always so close, the two of you. Always have been. And now that Sam’s grown, now that he’s a full-fledged hunter and a real partner, it makes sense that you’d feel even closer to him. Besides, he’s <em> family</em>. Family’s supposed to be close. That’s all.</p><p>But that’s a lie, too. <em> Dad’s </em> family, and God knows you don’t act like this around Dad. You tell yourself that it’s different - and it <em> is </em> - but not for the reasons you think. Not for the reasons you try and fill your head with when you’re spinning-drunk and staring across a three-foot gap, memorizing the way Sam’s hair curls over his face when he sleeps.</p><p>The breeze comes rolling through again and you down the rest of your body-temperature beer just to drown out that smell.</p><p>“Where’re we goin’ next?” Sam asks. There’s a drowsy softness to his consonants.</p><p>“Ohio,” you tell him. “Uh, Columbus. Dad’s got an appointment with a guy at OSU. A professor of anthropology, or archeology. One of those. He’s got something he wants us to take a look at.”</p><p>“Something?” Sam echoes curiously.</p><p>“Yeah, he didn’t really elaborate, I guess. Personally, my money’s on ‘cursed fertility idol.’”</p><p>“Why <em> fertility</em>?” Sam makes a face when he says it, like the word puts him off.</p><p>“I dunno. College campus, buncha hot coeds—“ You hum thoughtfully. “Call me hopeful.”</p><p>“There’s more to a college campus than the fucking <em> sororities</em>,” Sam sighs. “Stop thinkin’ with your cock for like, two seconds.”</p><p>“Hey, watch your mouth,” you warn him, genuinely and surprisingly unsettled by his use of the word <em> cock</em>. Like he's not old enough to know it. “You can stick to the library then, dork-ass. Jerk off into the encyclopedias or somethin’.”</p><p>Another sticky, warm stretch of silence. Sam takes another drink, pulls his lips off the bottle with a spit-soft <em>pop</em>.</p><p>“Did you ever think about it?” he asks, and you snicker.</p><p>“About jerkin’ off into—“</p><p>“About <em> college</em>, Dean, come on. It’s an honest question.”</p><p>His face also says it’s a <em> serious </em> question, so you clear your throat to cover up another laugh and give him an honest answer.</p><p>“No. Why the hell would I?”</p><p>Sam cocks his head to the side and gives you a sarcastic, one-shouldered shrug. “Why <em> not</em>? You’ve got your GED. You could get, like, a trade degree or something. They’re really good to have. You can even do them online now, you know? I’m, like, I mean, I’ve been reading about it. Even like a two-year thing, an Associate degree, or—”</p><p>“Why’re you bringing this up? Who fuckin’ <em> cares </em> about a degree? We’ve already got a career, right?” You find yourself picking at the label again. You’re not a nail-biter but this, the fidgeting, it <em> feels </em> like that. Nervous.</p><p>Sam sighs through his nose and shifts in his seat. He wriggles a bit, hunkering down against the door. He still looks sleepy but there’s a pensive quality to him, now, something you don’t particularly like. When he speaks again there’s still that soft quality to his words, but it makes you uncomfortable.</p><p>“What about <em> after </em> this, Dean?”</p><p>“After what?”</p><p>“After <em> hunting.</em> After you’re done - after <em> we’re </em> done,” he corrects himself. <em> We</em>. The three of you. After you’ve done what you need to do, after you and Dad and Sammy find that thing and kill it and the credits roll.</p><p>What then?</p><p>And you don’t want to say that you’ve never really thought about it. You don’t want to say that you’ve never had an image of after, of later. That you don’t know what you’ll do, who you’ll be, when this ends. That you aren’t sure how to <em> let </em> it end.</p><p>That you’re only <em> really </em> lonely when Sam talks like this.</p><p>He talks like this more and more, lately. </p><p>So you do what you always do when you don’t know what to say. You make a joke, because that’s easier. Simpler. Prettier, really, than looking right at those scary blank spots in your mind, those spots you’ve never had to think too hard about filling before.</p><p>“Die young, leave a pretty corpse,” you tell Sam, complete with a wink. “I’m hoping for a ‘guns-blazing, take-out-a-whole-vamp-coven-alone’ kinda thing, but I’m alright with something quieter, too. More stoic. Like—”</p><p>“Dean,” Sam cuts in. Soft. It’s this tone he gets when he knows you’re covering something up. When he knows he’s being lied to or given the runaround. This <em> I-see-through-you </em> voice that makes him seem so much older than he is. He’s been doing it since he was eight fucking years old and you’re helpless against it. Useless.</p><p>“What d’you want me to say, Sammy?” You flick bits of label-paper out the window and watch them flutter down onto the grass. Sam’s looking at you but you aren’t looking at him. You don't want to. Eye contact makes you feel...vulnerable. His face is worse than his voice in that way. “You want me to talk about getting married, gettin’ a garage job or some shit? Firin’ off a couple of swimmers into some soft-hearted apple-pie type so that I can raise another generation of bastards like us? Is that it?”</p><p>“Is that all you think is out there?” Sam lets out a sound that’s too close to pitying. “A wife and kids and waiting to die bored?”</p><p>“What else <em>is</em> there, man?” </p><p>“There’s…there’s a <em> lot</em>, Dean.” Sam’s voice around your name is so gentle. So fucking sad. It makes you ache in that same place that hurts when you smell him, when you watch him sleep, when you stand too fucking close. "There's <em>more</em>."</p><p>“You really think so, huh." You try to keep the bitter notes in your chest so they don’t bleed up into your mouth, your voice. You press your lips together and count to ten a few times before you can shove a smile back up onto your face and finally, <em>finally</em> look at your brother. “Anyhow, look - I already had to raise one brat. I’m not doin’ that shit again.”</p><p>“Hey, c'mon.” The lines in Sam’s forehead smooth out, the corners of his mouth inching back up into his dimples. “I think I turned out alright.”</p><p>“You turned out fuckin'<em> great, </em>Sammy,” you say. It’s supposed to be a brag but it feels and sounds like genuine praise. You feel self-conscious heat creeping up into your cheeks. "So, y'know - you're <em>welcome</em>."</p><p>That smile on Sammy’s face broadens and he looks down at the mouth of his beer, oddly demure for a kid - a <em> man </em> - his size. </p><p>“Thank you,” he says quietly, sweetly. "Seriously."</p><p>"Yeah, yeah."</p><p>The pink tip of Sam's tongue flicks out to toy with the swollen, bruised part of his lip. The gift you gave him. You want to push your thumb against it, want to make him wince, want to hear whatever other swears he knows. You think about his fingertip on your cheekbone again and it all makes you ache so bad that - for just a second - you think there's something really, genuinely wrong with you.</p><p>(And there <em> is </em> - but not for the reasons you’re telling yourself right now.)</p><p>The important thing is that the discussion is over. No more college talk, no more unanswerable questions. No more <em> laters </em> or <em> afters </em> or <em> what-ifs </em>. No more mostly-empty spots in the far-flung future where it’s just you. Alone. Lonely.</p><p>“We should get home,” you announce pointlessly. Dad won’t be awake to worry, and you haven’t had a curfew since you were sixteen. You fiddle with the keys anyway.</p><p>“Okay." Then, "Dean, um..."</p><p>Sam’s looking at you again. You can feel it, his gaze like a thumbprint-press at your right temple. You don’t look over. <em> Can’t.</em> There’s a sensation in the air between you, something akin to the breeze outside. Soft, stirring, persistent. If you look over you’ll say something, some shit that feels like it’ll tear you apart if you let it out. So you hold your breath and wait until those hundred thousand ways to kill yourself stop welling up behind the clutch of your throat. Until there's only something normal left.</p><p>“We gotta go home, Sam."</p><p>“...Okay,” Sam replies. It’s so quiet that you lose the end of it under the growl of the ignition.</p><p>The beer bottles jostle and chime between Sam’s feet as you bump your way back down the grassy hill. There are barely any lights on in the little clutches of civilization underneath you, streetlights included, but you find your way home easily all the same.</p><p>Dad’s still passed out in his sleeping bag with his bad arm resting on his chest. Sam kneels next to him to check his bandages. You slip past them, shuffling into the bathroom to clean up before bed. You wash the sweat from your neck and face, you brush your teeth.</p><p>You run your fingers over the bruise on your cheek and push at it until it your eyes are watering.</p><p>When you come back, Sam’s already in his own sleeping bag. His eyes are closed but his hair’s still tucked neatly behind his ears. He’s faking.</p><p>You go to sleep and pretend you don’t know that.</p><p>You pretend a lot, lately.</p><p>You pretend you haven’t seen the applications in his bag, the history on his computer. You pretend you don’t know every single little thing he does, every day. You pretend to stay asleep when Sam gets up early on the days after Dad overdoes it, when he fits as much studying as he can into the spare few unwatched hours he has. You pretend not to notice the way Sam stays up late when he thinks you’ve <em> both </em> overdone it, the way your dizzy head crowds up with the echo of keyboard-clacks as Sam fills out worksheets and essays and whatever-the-fuck-else you have to do to get an online degree. </p><p>You pretend that you don’t know an escape plan when you see one.</p><p>You pretend and you pretend and you keep fucking pretending, and it doesn’t matter. It doesn't change the fact that, six months later, Sam leaves you anyway.</p><p>There's no more lying about the loneliness after that.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I really enjoyed writing this one :) pining!Dean is my jam and I've wanted to write some pre-series stuff for awhile now. This is actually Part 1 of 2 in a pair of Stanford-era fics I'd been kicking around, both from Dean's POV. I'm excited to get to work on the other one now.</p><p>If you wanna stay updated on what I'm working on/if you enjoy Wincest shitposting and thirstposting, I do have a twit @meltinskelton. Come say hi! And maybe give me fic ideas/other fun feedback! I'm friendly, I promise.</p><p>Thanks as always for reading, leaving kudos/comments/etc.! ❤</p></blockquote></div></div>
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